It's not often people get a good look at where a mangaka's career truly started, and it's even less often that a mangaka's awful early works manage to be published the way the works of Akira Toriyama were in this package, aptly titled Akira Toriyama's Manga Theatre.

Akira Toriyama is someone any anime fan should know. Creator of mega hits Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball (both of which have some of the longest individual TV anime runs in Dr Slump: Arale-chan and Dragon Ball Z), alongside smaller sleeper hits like Sand Land or Jaco The Galactic Patrolman. He has a career spanning decades that is probably one of the strongest singular runs a mangaka has ever had. It makes you wonder, just how did he get his start? Did he ever write something bad or something that truly failed?

He did. A lot of times. That's the funny thing about this release, a lot of the manga in it aren't great- in fact, stuff like Wonder Island and its sequel are honestly terrible. Aimless, meandering, the type of comedy where you expect the creator to reflect years later, thinking "The first mistake I made was thinking this was funny", and that's what makes this so interesting. To see someone as simply great as Akira Toriyama and see his many failures. To read about how his editor Torishima kept rejecting his works, yet the pair persevered because Torishima saw a true greatness in Toriyama, a style that could be refined if properly nurtured.

This review is moreso focused on the little behind the scenes parts of the creation if you couldn't tell, this is a part of the manga but a rather small part. It's all very inspiring in a way to see these more than humble beginnings, how Toriyama didn't even plan on becoming a mangaka, how he only submitted something to Jump to win a contest, only to keep submitting stuff when he didn't win out of spite. A similar story is aired with Chobit, another manga contained in the collection. Nobody read it and it bombed, so he wrote a sequel driven by spite in some way.

In short, it gives a much more human air to these creatives. It lets you know that the guy who made the mega successful franchise, one of the largest IPs in the world, was a fuckup and a failure for good while. Obviously he had clear artistic talent, but outside of that he still needed refinement, you can read his earliest works and see how far away he is from the very clean comedic timing of even the earliest chapters of Dr. Slump, and he's far away from the dramatics of Dragon Ball.

Obviously, the manga theatre isn't entirely pre-Slump works, a portion of it was written during and after Dr. Slump, as well as during and after Dragon Ball. I'll dedicate a section here to discuss two I think are of note, those being Cashman and Go! Go! Ackman.

Cashman is a joyous read upon reaching the third volume. I have to make it clear, much of this release is incredibly early in his career and it constantly shows, so reading something with Toriyama's more refined comedic timing is a godsend, because Toriyama is a genuinely very funny guy. It shows a throughline of development, that he did get better and made works to be truly proud of, even if eveyrthing contained in here never released enough to fill up an entire volume on their own. Anyways, the very simple premise of an alien disguised as a human trying to preserve justice (while making cash on the side) is one of those very snappy, on the fly premises Toriyama would be known for. It's something so incredibly simple that it could be a one shot, or a series running several dozen volumes. Sadly, Cashman was only a handful of chapters, but it all feels very smooth and natural, even despite the abrupt conclusion it ends on a solid punchline.

Go! Go! Ackman is similar in this regard, another series that shows how slick Toriyama is at writing manga. Simple premises, great execution, and they run as long as he wants them to run (or as long as the Jump readership wants them to run, not saying any of these were cancelled though- Toriyama is also known for being very fickle (Sand Land!)), just a demon kid gathering souls to get money. Stories can be fighting an angel or him getting the hots for a demon girl, and I was honestly surprised to see it at the end of the manga theatre- when I had seen the OVA I figured it would've been a two or three volume long manga, but it's a rather quaint few chapters.

All in all, this is a great release if you're interested more generally in Akira Toriyama. It's mostly a collection of his lowest points, but the post-story behind the scenes stuff offers something to enjoy even during those.

Here's my ranking of all stories contained within, from worst to best.